JANUARY kicked off the year with a veritable mixed bag of weather. Overall, it was marginally on the mild side, mainly due to night-time temperatures. These tended to be propped up even when there was a good snow cover, as it was cloudier and windier than usual.

It was wet, and with about one-and-a-half times the normal rainfall, the wettest January for five years here at Carlton, near Stokesley.

Cold north-easterlies developed at the end of December and blew in the new year as a series of depressions moved north-east across southern Britain. These brought plenty of rain, maintaining the flood risk down there. We didn't have large amounts in our area, but it was still dull, wet and miserable for the first two days.

Then, a really cold airstream dug in as high pressure again took hold over Scandinavia. Wintry showers that followed over the next few days affected districts mainly to the east of the A19, depositing several centimetres (a few inches) of snow away from the coastal strip. There were hard frosts at night, but no extremely low temperatures, though they failed to rise above freezing in some places on a couple of days.

This cold snap ended rather tamely, thankfully, after about a week, as the anticyclone drifted slowly south across Britain. This allowed warmer air to gradually filter in from the Atlantic round its northern edge. Showers slowly turned from snow into sleet and eventually rain, at least at lower levels.

This was fortunate for the east of the region, where they were surprisingly frequent and heavy on the 10th. With winds becoming calm and skies clearing as the high passed by, the mercury still fell below freezing for two more nights, but this was not to happen again until the end of the month.

We returned to our familiar, changeable, south-westerly regime and by the morning of the 13th, temperatures had risen to 10C (50F). Initially, while the high was not so far away, fronts were fairly weak and there was little rain. With a brisk breeze over the next few days, the ground even started drying out.

However, the tracks of the depressions came ever closer and the rain-bearing systems became more active. This was especially so between the 17th and the 22nd when there was a good downpour every day bar one.

There wasn't as much rain as there might have seemed, as coincidentally, the rain descended mostly during daylight hours.

Away from the hills in North-East England, precipitation (the general term covering all forms of rain, snow and hail) falls for about 500-600 hours a year. This includes when it is at least wetting the ground but doesn't count when there are just spots of rain or a little drizzle in the air. A total depth of about 600-700mm (24-28 ins) accumulates every year on average, so it comes down at the rate of slightly over a millimetre (one-twentieth of an inch) per hour and for barely one-and-a-half hours per day.

In winter, rainfall is distributed evenly throughout the 24 hours of the day. Therefore, if you do something outside at a certain time each day, there is only a one in 16 chance of getting wet - i.e., just twice a month. All these figures are somewhat higher towards and over the moors and dales, and in summer there's an increased risk of rain falling between mid-afternoon and mid-evening. So, if during that recent interlude, you were soaked on five out of six days at noon, you may be consoled to know that it was abnormal.

The 26th rewrote the January record book in Scotland when the mercury soared to over 18C (65F) at Aboyne, west of Aberdeen, aided by the Fhn effect provided by the Cairngorms to its west. In our region, it wasn't quite so exceptional, though it was still the second warmest January day in my 20 years of records here, after the 10th in 1998, when it reached 15.2C (almost 60F).

On a couple of occasions, depressions transferred east over northern England and out into the North Sea. In their wake, northerlies blew for a day or so. The first time, around the 22nd, they were not particularly cold. However, those that arrived towards the end of the month brought winter back with a vengeance, with a distinctly icy blast direct from the Arctic.

The final Thursday was notably horrendous, especially, once more, near the east coast, with sub-zero temperatures and driving hail and snow, which drifted in the strong to gale force winds. The chaos on our roads and railways was inevitable.

JANUARY TEMPERATURES

& RAINFALL

at CARLTON IN CLEVELAND

Mean max 6.5C, 43.5F (+0.1C, +0.2F)

Mean min 1.8C, 35F (+0.5C, +0.9F)

Highest max 14.5C, 58F, 26th

Lowest min -6.5C, 20.5F, 5th

Total rainfall 87.0mm, 3.4ins (+26mm, +1.0ins)

Wettest day 10.5mm, 0.4ins, 10th

No of rain days, with 0.2mm (0.01ins) or more 23 (+6)

(Figures in brackets show the difference from the 19-year mean, 1984-2002